I am considering writing a brief post about how I think the EU AI office (where I will likely be starting a new position in one month) can address some issues of AI differently from other actors. The EU AI office might complement the work of traditional actors in addressing loss of control issues, but it could play a significant role in mitigating power concentration issues, especially in the geopolitical sense. This is a bit of a personal theory of change too.

I'd love someone to write how someone who feels most comfortable donating to the GiveWell top charities fund should address donating to animal charities. I know there exist ways like Animal Charity Evaluators Movement Grants, the Giving What We Can Effective Animal Advocacy fund, or the EA Animal Welfare Fund.

However, these all feel a bit different-flavoured than GiveWell's top charities fund in that they seem to be more opportunistic, small or actively managed; in contrast to GiveWell's larger, established, and typically more stable charities. This makes it much harder for smaller donors to understand how different theories of change are being considered, or keep track of the money's impact.

I am sorry to hear this.

Should small donors (~$10k per year) support small scale charities such as charity entrepreneurship incubated ones? Or would these charities be better supported by other larger founders?

Since targeting Ultra High Net Worth Individuals seems to be a more effective strategy than broad donations (reference), to what extent do you think it is feasible to attract more such individuals to effective giving? What strategies are you particularly excited about researching and testing more extensively to do so?

To what extent the EA community should put more effort towards increasing the donation basis vs finding ever more impactful opportunities? What worries me the most in the second case is that while there might be some pretty good untapped opportunities to create new, more impactful charities, there is always too much uncertainty. For example, this is often argued as a reason to not prioritise funding Vitamin A supplementation (€3.5k/per live saved) vs malaria nets (€5.5k/per live saved), see this Ayuda Efectiva spreadsheet based on GiveWell data; which are already pretty heavily researched areas.

What are, in your opinion, the most promising strategies to increase the amount of funding dedicated to effective charities?

To what extent would it make sense to consider the work by the Gates Foundation part of the effective giving ecosystem? I would argue that they are very effective, too, even if they have no association with effective altruism.

I’m not sure about the cost effectiveness, but they have a quote by Michael Kremer in their webpage:

“The country where one is born is the most important determinant of extreme poverty. By facilitating international educational migration, Malengo offers very low-income youth the opportunity to dramatically increase both their own incomes, and those of their families. In my view, each dollar of donation to Malengo is likely to increase the incomes of program participants by more than would be the case for donations to virtually any other organization.“

Michael Kremer University Professor in Economics, University of Chicago Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2019

This seems awesome. I’m grateful you are working on this.